Why has Japan been hit with rice shortages despite normal crops?

https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20240823/p2a/00m/0bu/024000c

by rntn • 2 years ago

142 149 2 years ago

mainichi.jp

Loughla• 2 years ago

So he says it's not because of tourism, but because of subsidies.

But then in the next section says it's because demand outstrips supply because of things like tourism.

What?

This is a piece of political writing targeted at the Japanese land use and subsidy policy. Nothing more.

adrian_b• 2 years ago

They have explained clearly enough.

Their system of subsidies limits the production of rice, so they do not have any rice surplus.

Because of that, even a very small increase in rice demand, like from having more tourists than expected in 2024 (I have also visited Japan this year, benefiting from the small prices after yen conversion) has been enough so that the demand could not be satisfied, resulting in increased prices.

After tasting the Japanese rice in Japan, I agree with the article that their rice is by far the best and that the government policy of limiting the rice production is wrong and it would be much better for them to produce a rice surplus and attempt to export it.

As they are aware, they could not compete directly with the cheaper rice from Thailand or other major exporters, but they could compete successfully in the "more expensive but better" rice category.

mkesper• 2 years ago

Q: It's said that the decline in rice consumption is serious, but if the amount produced increased and the price went down, people would eat more, wouldn't they?

A: Exactly. Rice acreage reduction is an absolutely terrible policy. The government spends over 300 billion yen (about $2.06 billion) in subsidies annually to decrease the amount of rice produced, thus going out of its way to raise the price and increasing the burden on consumers.

begueradj• 2 years ago

To be fair, that's a common practice even when it comes to non edible products (for example, coming from a petrol producing country, I grew up hearing every now and then about OPEC having decided to reduce petrol production to raise prices)

inanutshellus6• 2 years ago

Yes but per the article, this policy has been active for 60 years. They're not temporarily buoying after a seasonal surplus, they're just paying farmers not to farm ..... for generations.

logicchains• 2 years ago

The difference is that OPEC countries colluding to raise prices hurt other countries, not their own people (they generally subsidise petrol for their own citizens), whereas Japan's policy of artificially raising the price of Japanese rice hurts Japanese consumers, and Japanese consumers vastly outnumber Japanese farmers.

pjc502• 2 years ago

OPEC do that to raise export prices. Quite often they have subsidized or really lightly taxed petrol for domestic use.

EasyMark• 2 years ago

Are people moving to other crops that aren’t as water intensive with all the global warming and erratic weather patterns that are developing around the world? Looks like from the article there isn’t a significant decrease in rice production and “tourism” could only affect 0.5% so could it be artificial inflation like in the USA from limited competition that’s been going on the past few years?

mytailorisrich2• 2 years ago

Actually, global warming is making Japan get more rain.

sandworm1012• 2 years ago

Global warming, climate change is shifting weather patterns. While west coasts (California, the UK, Spain) are generally getting less rain, East coasts (Japan, Newfoundland, Florida) are generally getting hit with more rain and more storms.

bamboozled• 2 years ago

There is no water shortage on a small island like Japan, it gets a LOT of rain, and really, when grown in the mountain areas (cmmon in Japan) the rice terraces probably slow the water flow down rather than speed it up (going via the river straight into the sea) somewhat watering the rice crops and all other life nearby.

Rice doesn't actually need a lot of water to grow, they use the water as a type of weed control, rice is unique in that it can grow practically submersed in water. Most other species cannot.

Bali has been experimenting growing rice without such large amounts of water, it went well. Google it!

pjc502• 2 years ago

TLDR: the article points to a system of agricultural subsidy through quota limits, called "acreage reduction", similar to EU "set aside".

It seems a common phenomenon around the world that, because price instability for food leads to social instability, governments end up with elaborate systems of direct and indirect price control. In this case, farmers being paid not to grow rice.

WillAdams3• 2 years ago

It makes a lot more sense to allow them to grow it and to buy any surplus at a certain minimum price, then store it against famine years.

hangsi• 2 years ago

Yes, but then it needs to be stored, and the price effects might encourage even more production. Previously this has led to events like the devastating Wisconsin butter flood [0] ("A firefighter reported flames 300 feet (91 m) high", "It took about twenty hours to contain the blaze, and eight days until the fire was officially out").

Not that rice would do anything so nefarious, but more to point out that large scale purchase and storage is not a trivial task. I can imagine the scenario where some bureaucrats ran the numbers and concluded that it is cheaper to just give the money to farmers instead of running the purchase/storage scheme.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisconsin_Butter_Fire

Dalewyn2• 2 years ago

Why? Politics. Fin.

The Japanese government has long managed the production of rice to keep market prices high for the farmers' sake and given subsidies to farmers to not fully utilize their production potential.

Covid hit and tanked the demand moreso than usual, so government policies shifted to further production (read: supply) reductions. Less supply in response to reduced demand equals maintained market prices.

Politics has not caught up in the post-covid era where demand from both domestic and international (including tourism) has recovered and surged. The supply is still mid-covid limited.

Why? Politics. Fin.

onlyrealcuzzo• 2 years ago

Even great farmers can go out of business with just one really bad year.

That's not really in your interest, either.

The free market people will say - oh, someone else will just come in and take over the farm.

Easier said than done.

I'm not saying Japan has the best system, but it's probably nowhere near as bad as you think.

Dalewyn2• 2 years ago

I'm not saying Japan has the best system, but it's probably nowhere near as bad as you think.

I merely answered the Why? in the clickbaity article title.

As far as my thoughts on the policy, I think it's quite more reasonable than the far more popular western policy of letting the free market kill itself in a race to the bottom only to then be bought out by China.

The current rice shortage isn't a problem to do with the policy, it's how it's being handled.

WillAdams3• 2 years ago

As my grandfather (who along w/ his father-in-law, and my great-great-grandfather) was a farmer:

Never complain about how farming is managed and paid for when your belly is full.

inanutshellus6• 2 years ago

With the policy being active, non-stop, for 60 years (as opposed to temporary incentives to buoy farmers during a bad year) it's clearly politicking. Especially given the sleight-of-hand from the Abe administration (as mentioned in the article) where they claimed to kill the subsidy but actually only killed its limitations. In short - not sure why you've been downvoted.

wodenokoto• 2 years ago

The crop situation index for rice grown in 2023, indicating the amount of the rice harvest, was 101

Does that mean that each acre is producing about 100% of the average production, or that the total production is about 100% of the average production?

The article makes it sound like the change in production is neglectable and that the change in demand is tiny, implying that a high estimate would be about 0.5% increase in demand.

freeone3000• 2 years ago

Crop situation index is percentage yield of the area cultivated. 2023 had 101% of the expected yield per area, so it’s not a bad harvest (2022 had a 96 due to the typhoon, for instance). Which means the high price of rice results from some combination of increased consumption or reduced cultivation area.

pm90• 2 years ago

Im somewhat baffled by this policy… just produce as much rice as you can, buy surplus from farmers and give it out cheap/free as food assistance to developing countries. Surely a small cost to the Government to get a steady, controlled production numbers.

rglullis• 2 years ago

And then get accused of dumping by the WTO?

JumpCrisscross• 2 years ago

then get accused of dumping by the WTO?

Plenty of countries have subsidised or even free food programmes. (EDIT: Nvm, missed “to developing countries.”)

jncfhnb5• 2 years ago

Providing free food to poor countries runs the food producers out of business in those countries and counter intuitively harms their food security

erremerre• 2 years ago

Then give it to your enemies, send it to North Korea!

inanutshellus6• 2 years ago

then... you could dump it in the ocean and feed fish to help the fishing industry (which arguably would be a wise thing anyway given Japan's love of seafood). IIRC the USA did (does?) that with corn.

nothackerfox• 2 years ago

This is true. In the spirit of charity, what if we kill more businesses? Seems like doing good in the world can also have negative impacts we may not be aware of.

wolpoli• 2 years ago

Then they could give free food to countries that are experiencing short-term famine through natural or man-made disasters. In such a situation, consumers are helped and producers aren't really able to increase production in response to the high price - hence a famine.

insane_dreamer5• 2 years ago

Unless those countries are already net importers of rice

ReptileMan• 2 years ago

I would say that aid to developing countries is the one thing that has failed over and over again to improve them. Even China raw exploitation of those countries probably brings more development to a country than aid.

alephnerd9• 2 years ago

buy surplus from farmers

With what money?

Japan already has some of the highest debt-to-GDP ratios in the world, the Yen is increasingly unstable, and much of the budget is spent on the Japanese Welfare system that cannot be messed with or you are committing political suicide along with rising defense expenditures that are now required due to North Korea's military buildup.

The existing status quo is good enough to keep farmers happy (and not switching their vote) while leaving money on the table to be used for social spending, defense, and debt payments.

mitthrowaway22• 2 years ago

Japan's government debt is owed to... Japan, mostly the Bank of Japan (ie, the government). Ironically the yen is weak because Japanese interest rates are low, because Japanese prices have barely nudged since 1990, averaging approximately no inflation until roughly last year. If anything, Japan isn't printing nearly enough yen. They can afford to spend more and tax less.

CharlieDigital• 2 years ago

    With what money?

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but it sounds like they are already paying them to under-produce. So why not just pay them to produce the excess and then...do something with it? Sell it to other countries, donate it as humanitarian aid to areas like Gaza, Ukraine, etc.

ForOldHack4• 2 years ago

"People also ask Why is Japanese yen so weak today? Why is the yen losing value? There are several factors, but it is mainly a "product of divergent monetary policy between the Bank of Japan and its developed-market peers — particularly the Federal Reserve," said Barron's."

InDubioProRubio2• 2 years ago

Then do a hasty non-thought through turn towards green fuels and watch as the poor developing countries whose poor you fed for years, tear there governments a new one, shredding your regional diplomacy policy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_Spring

Welcome to policy dependency hell.. its getting heated.. but gradually..

downrightmike5• 2 years ago

Farm land conservation in the face of climate change is a good thing the USA has been doing it for generations. Depleting the land just because you can is a bad idea.

downrightmike5• 2 years ago

Depleting the land in that manner is what caused the Dust Bowl

refurb• 2 years ago

You’ve just destroyed the remaining rice growing industry in those countries and guaranteed they’ll never grow enough to feed themselves.

miragecraft• 2 years ago

A lot of countries have a national food reserve that is used to calm prices when demand fluctuates, it allows time to adjust production while you’re putting food in or out of the reserve to control prices.

Does Japan not have that?

phonon• 2 years ago

https://www.bastillepost.com/global/article/4076639-japans-r...

"Japan's rice stockpile has dropped to its lowest level in this century due to a prolonged heatwave in 2023 and rising domestic demand, causing concerns among residents about high prices."

lvspiff• 2 years ago

Probably for the same reason strategically placed tea reserves all around china just incase someone wants to steal it "all"...the idea of Japan having a massive underground cave complex for rice is amusing to me for some reason. I know its not how it works but the next big earthquake could open up a lava flow and produce a giant rice krispy field and then we'd just have to lure the stay-puff marshmallow man into that field...

bell-cot• 2 years ago

So Japan has a stockpile...but is not competent to manage it. I'd guess that's the usual story of too-numerous and long-calcified bureaucrats, overseen by oblivious and uncaring politicians.

(From a few quick searches, it looks like rice will last 5+ years with proper storage.)

ForOldHack4• 2 years ago

" Why has Japan been hit with rice shortages, soaring prices despite normal crops? (Answer: acreage reduction!)"

They claim to have enough.

empath75• 2 years ago

I wonder how much of this is actually just inflation. The first sign of inflation is shortages, usually, and then people raise prices to keep the goods on the shelf.

rawgabbit• 2 years ago

TLDR. The expert Kazuhito Yamashita argues:

    Japan is only producing about half of the rice it could potentially produce.
    This is due to government policy that pays farmers not to grow to prevent falling prices.
    Argues in the current geopolitical climate with the potential of a food blockade, this policy should be abandoned.
    If abandoned, Japan will become one of the largest rice exporters which he argues is better for Japanese food security.

philipov• 2 years ago

It sounds like an XY problem. They don't want the price to fall because then farming wouldn't be profitable, but they're paying farmers to not profit off sales anyway. Instead of subsidizing half the farmers to do nothing, they should subsidize all the farmers, half as much, and allow the price to drop by half.

k8wk1• 2 years ago

The amount of annual subsidies is around $2 billion. It's a tiny number for a country as large as Japan. Their GDB is $4 trillion per year.

Scoundreller2• 2 years ago

Sounds like dairy in Canada. We basically have a taxi medallion system for milk.

Result: high prices (basically a regressive tax), personal import limits that haven’t increased in 3+ decades, artificial barriers to entry (good luck becoming a dairy farmer unless you inherited a farm or take out a massive loan before even starting) & low per capita production for a country that could be a dairy exporting juggernaut.

New Zealand is currently the biggest dairy exporter. Canada, despite being a massive agri-exporter for other products, not even in the top 15.

codersfocus• 2 years ago

This reminds me of restaurants a bit.

You can price your menu high, such that it's mostly empty but sustainable.

The other option is pricing things low, and having the tables always be full. But of course, the employees need to work more.

ForOldHack4• 2 years ago

It is not. It is producing a two tier market. "As of January 2024, India was the world's largest rice exporter, shipping 16.5 million metric tons of rice. India's rice is known for its quality and aroma, and is shipped to many countries, including varieties like Basmati and non-Basmati. India's rice exports support millions of farmers and help the country's economy. " And India and Tialand are benefitting.

binary132• 2 years ago

I’m sure they would never do that here. Our price increases are completely organic, natural, and market-driven, as always. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

garibaldy• 2 years ago

yet another success of planned economy

InDubioProRubio2• 2 years ago

yes, why cant we just all have the great depression 100 time.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Depression

dade_• 2 years ago

There is strong evidence that attempts to fix the depression actually made it worse and prolonged it. One take of many: https://www.econlib.org/policy-failure-during-the-great-depr...

gradientsrneat• 2 years ago

Article claims USA/Europe no longer have crop reduction policies in place because "they know that producing more and exporting it brings greater benefits than reducing the amount produced." Japan's approach does indeed seem more controlling. Whether that's good or bad, I don't know.

Edit: Article also says "western" countries subsidize farmers to protect them from price drops of oversupply.

DoneWithAllThat• 2 years ago

They’re claiming…… tourism is the reason for increased demand? Seriously?

mistrial92• 2 years ago

sounds like an emotional appeal to a political situation, not at all factual. Politics in practice are full of this (challenge - rearrange those four letters)

sandworm1012• 2 years ago

Many are missing the cultural aspect. This isn't all about the government protecting the price. There is a second order issue. If the price dropped, Japanese farmers would react by reducing costs, by bringing in new tech and consolidating small farms into larger agri-businesses. Japan wants avoid the cultural changes that would bring to rural areas, areas that many believe to be the heart of Japanese culture.

DataDaemon• 2 years ago

Soon in Europe, only the protests stopped for a moment.

abeppu2• 2 years ago

A: People across the world say, "It's the best-tasting rice in the world, so why isn't more of it being exported?" Japanese agricultural officials often comment, "We can't compete with cheap rice produced in Thailand and elsewhere," but that's not the case. Just like you have luxury and standard cars, there are different kinds of rice. Luxury cars won't lose out to ordinary ones even if the price is higher.

Totally not the point of this, but is Japanese rice really "the best-tasting"? Don't get me wrong, I enjoy California-produced Japanese-style short-grained varieties (I'm not sure whether I've bought actual Japanese-grown rice) -- in some applications. But sometimes you want a jasmine or a basmati or something else, and it seems like that's a matter of preference and what you're used to and what other food you're eating it with, more than "better" or "luxury".

solarmist5• 2 years ago

"It's the best-tasting rice in the world" is typical Japanese hyperbole in the same way they brag about having four seasons.

I'm sure it's excellent, but in the end, it's just rice. A blind taste test would be random noise. I sure can't remember there being a material different in the rice I ate in Japan vs good Japanese food in Cali.

Hell, even if you included jasmine or basmati, I'll bet most western people wouldn't even be able to tell those apart from Japanese short-grained rice.

Edit: western people

abeppu2• 2 years ago

I mean, different kinds of rice do have clearly different textures, and basmati and jasmine are both aromatic in a way that koshikihari is not. I think people should be able to tell them apart easily (including just from "how easy is this to eat with chopsticks? could I imagine clumping this into the base of nigiri sushi? could I imagine this in a biryani?") but I think that's very different from deciding that one is better. To me your statement is like saying people cannot tell the difference a French baguette, focaccia and Japanese milk bread because "it's just bread". I think you wouldn't confuse them unless you were really distracted.

djtango2• 2 years ago

Please don't project your own opinions of a staple that people eat sometimes 3 meals a day onto others.

I'll beat your blind taste test everyday of the week just by rolling the rice around in my mouth

EDIT fwiw you can vaguely bucket 1.4 billion people into "eat basmati" 673M+1.4B people into "eat jasmine" and 150M+50M into "eat short grain" rice which is well over a third of the planet

insane_dreamer5• 2 years ago

it’s just rice

Tell that to my Japanese wife, LOL

We also buy the “Japanese” rice grown in California and she is never fully satisfied with it.

duffyjp• 2 years ago

My wife is Japanese and we buy Japanese style rice grown in California (Nishiki Premium). She still complains it isn't as good, but my theory is it's actually the water used in prep. Our Wisconsin water is incredibly hard, and water in Tokyo won't scale a kettle EVER. It's very, very good.

cynicalkane• 2 years ago

Try The Rice Factory, a rice importer in New York state. They import prize rice from Japan, in refrigerated containers. It's a clear step up in quality from anything grown in California.

j7ake• 2 years ago

Test your theory by using distilled or soft water to make your rice.

sabareesh• 2 years ago

Nailed it, More often it is the water than the other ingredient even with the coffee

gopher_space• 2 years ago

My family buys bags of flour every time we're in Canada because the old recipes apparently don't taste quite right with anything else. We'll probably keep doing it because it's kind of fun.

genocidicbunny• 2 years ago

You could run an experiment pretty trivially to determine if the hardness of the water is the issue. Get one of those charcoal filters, get some coffee filters, and cook some rice with various combinations of the filtering.

The previous place I lived in had very hard water, and I found that running the water through both a coffee filter and then a Brita charcoal filter worked rather well to soften the water and improve the quality of the rice I was cooking.

bearhall• 2 years ago

I personally find the idea of water being important to be overstated. It’s frequently repeated as fact but I don’t see it quantified.

The only experiment I have found that attempts to measure this is by Kenji with pizza. In his test, the water did not matter.

https://www.seriouseats.com/does-nyc-water-make-a-difference...

lbotos2• 2 years ago

I might agree with your wife. :P

Nishiki uses an offshoot of Calrose rice, which is okay but popular Japanese rice is often Koshihikari or Yumipurika: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nishiki_rice (do click the link for SICK web art on a random wikipedia page)

If you can find some https://umamimart.com/products/tamaki-haiga-rice is one of my favs.

Or as someone commented below the rice from The Rice Factory is solid if you are looking for a treat: https://trf-ny.com/collections/rice

I currently have 3 varieties from TRF in my cupboard :D

mandevil• 2 years ago

If a "Japanese agricultural official" is not claiming that Japan produces the best-tasting rice in the world, he is failing at his job! His job is to promote Japanese agriculture, at home and abroad.

As you say, there are different kinds of rice that taste and feel differently, and you should use the right one for your recipe, but debating with a marketing person about their superlative is a futile exercise.

Spivak2• 2 years ago

Yep, I'm sure Ohio has the best corn in the world if you ask the ODA and New York has the best pizza if you ask their tourism division.

darby_nine• 2 years ago

If a "Japanese agricultural official" is not claiming that Japan produces the best-tasting rice in the world, he is failing at his job!

Surely this would be better served with a believable statement rather than blatantly subjective hyperbole.

rasz2• 2 years ago

Luxury cars won't lose out to ordinary ones even if the price is higher.

meet Lexus LFA vs Corvette.

georgeecollins• 2 years ago

That's a really interesting comparison because the LFA is such a good car. But the Corvette has much more brand equity because its been what it is longer than most of its buyers have been alive. The LFA just wasn't around long enough to build broad awareness. A closer comparison is 911 vs Corvette. You can always charge more for a 911, both cars have a ton of brand loyalty. The 911 is the Japanese rice, the Corvette is the California rice :)

AlbertCory• 2 years ago

This calls out for a Triangle Test! There are a lot of Japanese where I live, and grocery stores that cater to them. It would be easy to test whether people really can tell the difference.

dmoy3• 2 years ago

The best rice I've had is in far northeastern China (Heilongjiang or Jilin province). Which seems weird to me given the geography, but I guess I don't know shit about rice farming.

pragmomm• 2 years ago

Many studies have shown that the heavy metal content in (Chinese) rice exceeds food safety standards, especially levels of cadium (Cd) and lead (Pb) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9754602/

insane_dreamer5• 2 years ago

Chinese would never agree with you. The best rice comes from the South. (I dont necessarily agree but it’s a strong stereotype that I often heard in my 6 years there).

There is an old Chinese saying that goes Live in Hangzhou, marry in Suzhou, dine in Guangzhou, and die in Luzhou.

maxglute• 2 years ago

I think Japanese rice in a decent Japanese rice cooker with millions of engineering hours poured into competently cooking Japanese rice consistently produces pretty great rice. Flavour / texture wise, I'd pick Thai rice cooked from stove top over it any day.

zoogeny• 2 years ago

Just one man's anecdote: I worked a short walk from a specialty Japanese food store when I lived in New York city. It was the kind of place that had fresh produce and fish/meat flown in from Japan a few days per week. They had a very large section of Japanese rice that had been produced in Japan (e.g. all of the packaging including ingredients etc. were in Japanese and the store manually overlaid printed labeled stickers in English). I pretty much exclusively ate rice I bought there for 2 or 3 years cooked in a mid-range Zojirushi rice cooker (as an aside - this is my favorite and most used kitchen appliance to this day and I would replace it in a heart beat if it ever stops working)

The premium brands of Japanese rice that I would buy were slightly better than the current Kokuho Rose brand I get now (this is the best I can find in semi-rural Canada). The biggest difference in quality were brown rice variants (e.g. genmai) that I have been unable to find anywhere else. But the short-grain white rice weren't so much better that I really miss them. The quality is maybe 5% better but the cost to have it imported here is more than double, so very much not worth it.

herdrick2• 2 years ago

There is no rice shortage in Japan currently, at least not in the sense of the word 'shortage' in economics. Prices are not held artificially low (they are influenced by the state in a market-friendly way through restrictions in supply), and so we see that rice is as available as ever, just at a higher price than last year.

eriri• 2 years ago

Available as ever? Here at Tokyo, rice aisles are literally empty right now in stores everywhere.

herdrick2• 2 years ago

Oh wow! Sorry about that. Empty aisles, i.e. a true shortage, only happens due to an artificially low price -- do you know what is holding the price down in this case? Perhaps price gouging laws? Or (misguided) big chain stores' policies against big price increases?

I recommend little mom-and-pop stores. Typically they feel free to quietly charge a market-clearing price.

knowitnone• 2 years ago

this article is completely bogus. there is no shortage. this was done on purpose via government policy

tjpnz• 2 years ago

Wife bought a big bag of white rice yesterday. You can still find it although not necessarily at big supermarkets.

Why has Japan been hit with rice shortages despite normal crops?

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